Monday 16th December - Old Father Christmas

Goodness, we've made it to the week before Christmas!  May the cooking start!

Old Father Christmas William Ewart Lockhart

The bit I like best about Christmas is the baking.  Even this year, when I have not attempted as much as I usually do, I am still gearing up for all manner of mince pies, croissants, even more strawberry jam, a yule log and vegetarian sausage rolls among a host of other delicious things.  Today and tomorrow I have to bake the things I am giving to people as gifts this year, because I am a firm believer that the most heartfelt things often come from the oven.  Let's have a look at what Father Christmas brought....

Sorry, you lost me for a moment.  Mmmmm, oranges and nuts, and whatever that is in the middle - is it a ham, or a pineapple.  Ham pineapple?  Is that a thing?  Bet it's good on pizza.  Moving on.  I have been distracted recently from my writing by the utter plethora (good word) of Christmas cooking programmes.  I'm not a big watcher of cookery programmes as a whole, I prefer the doing to the watching, but the Christmas ones makes me very happy.  The aspirational lifestyle conceit plays nicely to my ethos, plus I have complicated feelings about Nigel Slater.  There is something about a table full of gorgeous food on shiny platters that makes me come over all Nigella.  Pomegranates at the ready!

Father Christmas looks jovial, if a tiny bit, well, creepy.  No, I'm sure he's completely harmless and he obviously wants to share his ham pineapple with us, so that's lovely.  His white robe makes me think of Father Time rather than Father Christmas.  Mind you, I'm struck by how much alcohol he has on his table.  Just because it's quite dark in the room, you can't mistake that he has at least three bottles and no-one else with him, so it looks like it's going to be a raucous evening.  Hang on...

Creepy painting alert!  On the wall to Daddy Christmas' right is a picture of a dancer or something like that.  There is something about the little pink frocked figure that chills the fluff out of me.  It would be enough to put you off your shiny platter of nuts.  I may just change chairs so I can sit with my back to it.  Mind you, on the other wall, out of the frame, might be the pair of paintings that used to be at my Nan's house.  In her kitchen she had a matching pair of grizzling urchins in oils.  Terrible.

Right I'm off to make gingerbread and I shall return tomorrow...